Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
I don't suppose the forum moderator would care to post that comment in the time bar for each and every post? 😉
what's the big knock against digital b&w?
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I don't suppose the forum moderator would care to post that comment in the time bar for each and every post? 😉
Jack Conrad
Well-known
Every image on the Net is a digital image, so if I scan/copy my film,
does that somehow alter the grain of the film?
does that somehow alter the grain of the film?
back alley
IMAGES
i'm not side stepping anything...i am not a scientist or a debate master...i know that i like digital...i also used to like film, especially when it was the only game in town...i have not yet read the blog so i have no comment on that at this time. i am also not in an argument about which might be better, film or digital. i have prints from both hanging on my walls...as i said before, after 30 plus years in the darkroom, i now favour using a computer and a digital file.
i started this thread to get an idea of where folks are at on the issue...as i said before, there is a thread here that has some (to me) awesome images and i was having difficulty trying to understand what folks had against digital black and white.
simple, really.
filmfan
Well-known
I agree. When he was shooting film, he was an all-star. Now that he's using digital, it aint the same (no offense Simon-- you are still more talented than I).
Anyways, I agree with what has been said-- If you can't tell the difference, don't bother worrying about it. Leave it to others...
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
Cyanotypes or other processes are not inherently better, but they are hands-on processes with real consequences.
Unlike when we simulate the results of those processes digitally.
The idea of "faking" it (which I don't agree myself) comes about because there isn't really a consequence for not following a sequence of actions in a timely manner. So the mentality there is tweaking things forever, with the ability to undo things, forever.
Which is not necessarily bad, in fact it's great for experimenting, but a lot of people don't find it as satisfying as when we pull a sheet of paper out of the developing tray and are greeted with a gorgeous print.
What produces the satisfaction? the anticipation after doing all the steps, imperfectly. This is what you don't get when you continuously tweaking an image in front of the computer.
The results, irrelevant. They may be indistinguishable from each other. It does not matter.
Because again, it's not a matter of better or not,
rather, it's a matter of satisfying or not.
Edit: Don't hear me wrong, there can be a lot of satisfaction derived simply from the results. But it's a different kind of satisfaction.
I guess those darkroom steps got tired for me. I became more about the image these days than the process. There is no difference, FOR ME, to seeing a print materialize in developer or seeing it come out of inkjet. The image is what matters and if that image looks how I want it, I don't care what process got me there. The part of the process I truly love though, and feel is most important, is being out with my camera photographing.
Perhaps I spent too much time in the darkroom in the past that I don't get the magic feeling from the process anymore. However, I understand the appeal of a darkroom (and how it can be funner) over a computer. I honestly prefer the computer these days though because it allows me to make the photos I want in the manner I want. I guess I'm in the minority.
sevres_babylone
Veteran
DominikDUK
Well-known
The only thing about digital that really pisses me of is the misuse of accepted terminology. A digital cyanotype, pigment print, platinum print does not exist. it's a different medium than an inkjet print/ digital photo not better just different and it's about high times that the folks misusing this terms accept it.
Jsrockit is right when he says "image is what matters and if that image looks how I want it"
Dominik
Jsrockit is right when he says "image is what matters and if that image looks how I want it"
Dominik
sevres_babylone
Veteran
I'm curious why a digital print made with pigment inks shouldn't be called a "pigment print?"
Paddy C
Unused film collector
A little late to this party but...
There is of course "Truth to Materials". This is why you can make an argument that digital black and white conversions (especially those which try to mimic film) are silly and shouldn't be done. It is also why you could argue against all the retro filters in vogue at the moment.
It is a completely reasonable argument. But it's just one argument, one view.
One might call upon Nietzsche to settle this thusly:
I dislike dogma. And a lot of what gets brought out in these discussions sounds too much like dogma to me.
On screen, there is, IMHO, no way to reliably tell digital from film. I've seen digital black and white conversions that I would have been very proud to have captured on film. I am routinely fooled. Recently by an iPhone photo on flicker that I assumed was taken with a square-format MF camera. Yes, sometimes, film can be obvious and vice-versa but it is not necessarily and always so.
Prints may be a different story. But there again we encounter many problems due to knowledge, understanding, and experience. What is a good print? What do we look for? What is "better". What please us and what is our reference?
There is of course "Truth to Materials". This is why you can make an argument that digital black and white conversions (especially those which try to mimic film) are silly and shouldn't be done. It is also why you could argue against all the retro filters in vogue at the moment.
It is a completely reasonable argument. But it's just one argument, one view.
One might call upon Nietzsche to settle this thusly:
I dislike dogma. And a lot of what gets brought out in these discussions sounds too much like dogma to me.
On screen, there is, IMHO, no way to reliably tell digital from film. I've seen digital black and white conversions that I would have been very proud to have captured on film. I am routinely fooled. Recently by an iPhone photo on flicker that I assumed was taken with a square-format MF camera. Yes, sometimes, film can be obvious and vice-versa but it is not necessarily and always so.
Prints may be a different story. But there again we encounter many problems due to knowledge, understanding, and experience. What is a good print? What do we look for? What is "better". What please us and what is our reference?
BobYIL
Well-known
I am using film for B&W and digital for color and maintaining a personal view for the subject of these debates:
- Digital B&W users should stop arguing that they are able to duplicate film B&W via digital means. This is different than stating "I am pleased with my digital B&W as I am with the film B&W, or, as much as I am with the film B&W."
- For the majority -could even be 99%- of us to work in front of a computer is easier and more convenient than working on a bench of a kitchen or bathroom.
- I tend to believe that at least for the 50% of photographers I met the difference between the film B&W and digital B&W is not worth to keep on with film.
- The great majority of us do see the differences between them and wish they one day would have the digital means emulate the film look 100%.
- The remaining minority will keep on shooting B&W film until a day when they really were not able to tell the differences between their film and digital pictures (will there be such a day??)
- We are becoming more and more lazy. Decades long there were labs everywhere, photo shops to deliver our prints the same day!, a dozen alternative shops around to pick up the one with best quality and yet: A lot of us were developing their own films!! Now the labs are scarce, used darkroom gears are going for a song (or whistle) and we are whining on forums for having to live the most desperate period of photographic history.
DominikDUK
Well-known
I've underlined the relevant part there is a clear destinction between the classic pigment print and the digital pigment print.
William Eggleston Digital Pigment Prints Fetch $5.9 Million at Auction
And why I personaly wouldn't call it pigment print is very simple the name is already in use for the carbon print which is nearly 100 years older is difficult to master and the use of the name for a different process can and does confuse people. And I also fear that the original process might be forgotten.
I don't have anything against Archival Inkjet prints, another name for the digital pigment print and one that is closer to the truth.
In case of the pigment print it's also more of a personal opinion in case of other processes like Platinum or cyanotype it is not
Dominik
William Eggleston Digital Pigment Prints Fetch $5.9 Million at Auction
And why I personaly wouldn't call it pigment print is very simple the name is already in use for the carbon print which is nearly 100 years older is difficult to master and the use of the name for a different process can and does confuse people. And I also fear that the original process might be forgotten.
I don't have anything against Archival Inkjet prints, another name for the digital pigment print and one that is closer to the truth.
In case of the pigment print it's also more of a personal opinion in case of other processes like Platinum or cyanotype it is not
Dominik
sevres_babylone
Veteran
Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't aware that pigment print was in use for one particular process. The website I checked which more or less defined pigment print as any print made with pigment was from a company selling or processing digital photographic prints, so I thought they might not be unbiased. That said, they also used the term "digital pigment print." That term sounds like it might be the best.
I agree with what you said about "platinum" or "cyanotype", which is why my curiosity was limited to "pigment."
That said, I sometimes use filters that Nik and others provide that use those traditional print process names in the description of the filter; but I would not sell or describe one of my digital prints as a cyanotype or pigment print.
mani
Well-known
I've spent most of my adult life working with digital media (and made a pretty good success of it so far) and one thing this experience has given me is a deep understanding, and enormous humility, of what even the very best digital manipulators can do when post-processing a sensor-captured image.
I don't hate digital b&w by any means, but it doesn't and cannot ever truly emulate the way that film captures light. That first stage is always 'wrong', and no amount of pixel-shifting can change that inalterable fact. You may think that your photoshop skills overcome these laws of physics - but they don't.
Incidentally, I don't dispute that digital images viewed on a screen can look like film, just as film images viewed the same way can often be mistaken for digital - but if you shoot exactly the same scene side-by-side on film and digital at exactly the same time and conditions - especially exposing a scene with bright highlights and luscious bokeh - then you will see that there are differences that each cannot emulate in the other medium.
To clarify some points made by others: my years of digital manipulation have given me much greater respect for film photographers: it's precisely because I know how much can be altered in post-processing that I lose interest in a photograph if I find it's a digital image that's been 'artificially' manipulated to imitate another form of the medium. Anyone who thinks that moving sliders in Photoshop and layering scanned scratches and bubbles is analogous to the craft of collodion printing is just deluding themselves.
Make images in the medium of your choice - and be true to it.
tbarker13
shooter of stuff
Hmmm. I think you are only the minority in this minority.🙂
Otherwise, we wouldn't be watching the slow (and sad) disintegration of the film sector.
mani
Well-known
That wasn't the intended meaning of my analogy, at all. This was aimed at people who say that there's no visual difference between a digitally manipulated image and the way that image would have looked had it been shot with film. The point is that people who can't see the differences claim that those differences don't exist.
I don't really care whether someone uses film or digital (I use both, for work and pleasure), but the people who claim that Nik Efex (or other post-processing) is 'the same' as real film are analogous to the person claiming 'all wine tastes the same'.
No value-judgement was intended - although I personally prefer film. And a good Burgundy. 😉
philosomatographer
Well-known
Digital B&W can be very nice, but it's flat in its very soul, no matter how it's processed. This is because it is produced by a linear sensor that responds to all visible wavelengths of light pretty much equally, with comparatively limited dynamic range, and they honestly all look the same to me.
Even in 35mm film, there is no digital sensor with the resolution, dynamic range, and unique tonal response of, say, Adox CHS 25 film:
(Adox CHS Art 25 - 35mm, Zuiko 135mm Macro at f/4.5, Olympus OM-4Ti)
Even in 35mm film, there is no digital sensor with the resolution, dynamic range, and unique tonal response of, say, Adox CHS 25 film:
(Adox CHS Art 25 - 35mm, Zuiko 135mm Macro at f/4.5, Olympus OM-4Ti)
I've never seen a satisfactory simulation (and that's all it could be - a simulation) of a digital reproduction of what a film like this looks like in an analogue print. Not even a Nikon D800 can dream of capturing the subtlety and information content that a frame of 135 film with this stuff can. What chance, then, of matching 6x7cm or 4x5in fine-grained film, correctly processed and printed. I particularly enjoy Ilford Pan F in 6x7cm - at this time, there is no digital sensor that can compare (again, in tonal response and dynamic range, not to mention resolution):
(Ilford Pan F at ISO32 - 6x7cm, Mamiya RB67 + Sekor-C 37mm lens)
There is no chance of matching the 16x20in analogue print of this by any digital means currently - it just looks so different and flat by comparison. Of course, so too do these scanned versions of my prints - but you'll just have to take my word for it 🙂
The value of digital - to me - lies entirely in convenience, and low-light sensitivity. Certainly not in the final product (a B&W print). There are those that know the difference, and there are those that do not. To each their own.
(Ilford Pan F at ISO32 - 6x7cm, Mamiya RB67 + Sekor-C 37mm lens)
There is no chance of matching the 16x20in analogue print of this by any digital means currently - it just looks so different and flat by comparison. Of course, so too do these scanned versions of my prints - but you'll just have to take my word for it 🙂
The value of digital - to me - lies entirely in convenience, and low-light sensitivity. Certainly not in the final product (a B&W print). There are those that know the difference, and there are those that do not. To each their own.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I love encountering such bigotry in the real world. I show them stuff I've done with digital and they think its film. The looks on their faces are Priceless, like a Mastercard commercial, when they learn the truth. Its not about 'knowing the difference', its a divide between those with and those without the skill to do it right. It took my several years of practice to get that good at digital processing though. I'm too much a perfectionist to accept something that isn't as good as it should be.
There are some limitations, and some subjects don't convert well, but to say that no digital black and white looks good is silly.
Chinasaur
Well-known
As an Admin, I was surprised you even posted this..
THIS theme ...is a common "Holy War™" theme that has generated a lot of "us vs them" posts...here and in other forum.
No antagonism intended...but didn't you see the antagonism coming?
Or did you intend for this to generate this amount of hate / discontent?
THIS theme ...is a common "Holy War™" theme that has generated a lot of "us vs them" posts...here and in other forum.
No antagonism intended...but didn't you see the antagonism coming?
Or did you intend for this to generate this amount of hate / discontent?
back alley
IMAGES
so it's not digital black & white images per se that you are against...it's the manipulation of said image to look like film...as in using nik fx?
so if i just process my images in pse to my liking then it's ok?
not being a smart ass here, seriously asking...